Effectiveness of robot-assisted gait training on patients with burns: a preliminary study.

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of RAGT on patients with lower extremity burn for the first time. 12 patients with lower extremity burns were included. SUBAR® (CRETEM, Korea) is a wearable robot with a footplate that assists patients to perform voluntary muscle movements. Patients underwent 30 min of RAGT using SUBAR® for 30 min once a day for 5 days a week for 4 weeks. Functional scores of functional ambulation category (FAC), 6-minute walking test (6MWT) distances, and numeric rating scale (NRS) scores of pain before and after 4 weeks RAGT were measured. NRS scores decreased significantly from 6.92 ± 1.78 points before RAGT to 4.17 ± 1.75 points after 4 weeks of RAGT (p = 0.002). FAC scores increased significantly from 1.58 ± 1.08 points to 3.08 ± 1.31 points (p = 0.002). 6MWT scores increased significantly from 182.17 ± 153.62 points to 279.17 ± 119.27 points (p = 0.001). RAGT may facilitate early recovery from a burn injury. This study is the first study to evaluate the effectiveness of RAGT on patients with burns. Outcomes were meaningful, including patient-subjective outcome measures, and objective gait functions for burn patients. The absence of complications on burn patients provides an opportunity to enlarge the application area of RAGT. PMID: 32469244 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering - Category: Biomedical Engineering Authors: Tags: Comput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin Source Type: research